Article by **Chase Covington**, **Tomer Slaney** (partners, New York) and **David Pralong** (senior partner, Charlotte), published by the *McKinsey Transformation Practice* in **September 2026** (exact day unspecified, dated the 1st by convention); 8 pages, 2 exhibits whose content is not reproduced in the text. **(1)** Finding: the transformation office (TO) is slow to modernize its own tools; in a turnaround involving **3,000** employees, **more than 15** people produced a **300-page** report every four weeks. **(2)** Three pillars entrusted to agents: *performance intelligence*, *single source of truth*, *conversation facilitation*. **(3)** Reported gains: **35 to 40%** of time on core tasks, sometimes **70%**; a central team reduced from **ten to three** people. **(4)** Guardrails: cascading errors between agents, false alerts, traceability of each step. **(5)** Sequence: reporting first, action automation next, change management within the TO. The authors present the text as "a first look at the opportunity for TOs". The cases are not named, no measurement method is described, and two of the tools cited (**Wave**, **Lilli**) belong to McKinsey. The text follows on from [[sternfels-mckinsey-60000-people-20000-agents-officechai-2026-01-14]], where McKinsey already counts its agents among its workforce.
Official product page from **DeepSeek**, published on **August 13, 2026**, **unsigned**, ~450 words, announcing the *developer preview* release of **DeepSeek Harness** (`dsh`) — a coding-agent harness **open source under the MIT license**, whose repository opened the same day. A three-word thesis, repeated in the title and in the repository description: *« Everything is a plugin »*, paired with a second promise, *« Every run is traceable »*. The page states the equation *« AGENT = MODEL + HARNESS »* and lists the pluggable capabilities — *« models, tools, skills, sessions, sandboxes, storage, loops, scheduling, and the UI »*. Four modes ship: **Standard** (full coding agent), **Code** (tools exposed via the *Code Mode SDK*, letting the model compose multi-step operations inside a TypeScript program), **Minimal** (*« two-tool coding agent with persistent bash and str_replace_editor »*, explicitly *« for benchmarking models in a minimal environment »*), and **Creator** (runtime inspection, in-memory plugin testing). The technical substance sits in the repository, not on the page: `docs/architecture.md` states a logging invariant — *« Model-visible means logged. Anything that reaches a model request must be reconstructable from the log, and a runtime invariant asserts it »* — and states that *« there is no privileged core to patch »*. The technical core is not DeepSeek's own: DSH is built on **Cordis** (the `cordiverse` project, a third party), **vendored** into `vendor/` with a manifest and a sync procedure, and the page places the *« Cordis paper »* at the same navigation level as "GitHub" and "Developer docs". Two LLM adapters ship — `dsh-llm-deepseek` and `dsh-llm-pi-ai`, a generic multi-provider adapter. The repository warns in capitals: *« THERE WILL BE COMPATIBILITY-BREAKING CHANGES »*, and `CLAUDE.md` specifies that `SESSION_FORMAT_VERSION` stays at `0` *« with no compatibility promise »*, with backends rejecting old on-disk formats. Timeline: DSH ships on the day **DeepSeek-V4-Pro reaches GA**, three days before a new API pricing schedule takes effect on **August 16, 2026 at 16:00 UTC**, with peak/off-peak rates and an off-peak discount of **−50%**.
#DeepSeek Harness#dsh#agent harness
**DeepSeek** (DeepSeek AI, laboratoire chinois) · en tant qu'institution. Page produit **non signée** : aucun auteur · aucun ingénieur mis en avant · aucun billet de blog ni papier technique associé. Le « nous » n'apparaît qu'une fois · en dernière phrase — *« We look forward to exploring the limits of intelligence with developers worldwide »*. Publiée le **13 août 2026**. La page est rendue en JavaScript : `curl` sur l'URL renvoie **HTTP 202 avec un corps vide** · le texte n'existant qu'après exécution du bundle. Deux documents de politique sont liés en pied de page — *Safe Use Policy* et *Data Processing Statement*.
Short article (**8 pages**, 4 exhibits) from **McKinsey Technology**, authored by **Jared Moon** (senior partner, London), **Rory Walsh** and **Vito Di Leo** (partners, Dublin and Zurich), with **Adam Thelwall**, published in **May 2026**. The authors report productivity gains of **×3 to ×5** with a **60% reduction** in team size at several companies, and attribute them to redesigning the operating model, not to agent deployment alone. Four levers: (1) the **24-hour sprint**, with a night shift of agents (16h) and a human day shift (8h); (2) automating the **handoffs** between requirements, design and code, which they say account for **70% of tech spend** against 30% for deployment; (3) a **knowledge infrastructure** of domain-specific graphs, queried by an agent « bibliothécaire »; (4) resizing teams and the portfolio. On the graph: *« this should not begin with a grand, top-down ontology effort »*. The team figures are presented as illustrative, drawn from the firm's "experience and observation." Extends McKinsey's November 2025 presentation on agent-driven software delivery ([[harrison-maniar-mckinsey-reshaping-software-delivery-agents-2025-11-23]]).
#McKinsey#agentic SDLC#operating model
Jared Moon (senior partner) · Rory Walsh · Vito Di Leo (partners) · avec Adam Thelwall (associate partner) — McKinsey & Company